


Nightmares

by elanorjoy



Series: ACOMAF from Rhys' POV-Selected Scenes [4]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, alternate POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-19 21:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7377298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elanorjoy/pseuds/elanorjoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhysand's POV during Feyre's first nightmare in Velaris. Taken from Chapter 17 of ACOMAF.<br/>Just added: Rhysand's POV when Feyre comforts him after his nightmare wakes her up. Taken from Chapter 38 of ACOMAF.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I flew around Velaris for hours after I left Feyre at the townhouse. It had been a damned long day and a longer night before it,  and I felt raw around the edges, but being back in Velaris was a balm. She was here. Feyre was here. I couldn’t quite believe it. She was out of the damned Spring Court of her own volition and she was  _ here _ . In Velaris. She’d seen my city and finally started to understand what I’d had to protect Under the Mountain, why I’d done all the horrible things I had. She’d grabbed my wrist and looked up at me without seeing a monster lurking behind my pretty eyes.

And she’d met my family and she’d liked them. Even though I had promised them all centuries ago that I would stay out of their heads, I could see on their faces plain as day that they liked her, even Amren. She had gone into that dinner with nervousness radiating off of her in waves, but it had slowly dissipated as the evening went on. And after seeing her with them, after seeing everyone I loved together in the same room...It was impossible for me to imagine them without her. She was a piece we hadn’t known we’d been missing, but we were better with her, pale and sickly as she was. 

I sent a nudge down the bond between us, the bond that had allowed her past my mental shields earlier, just to see if she’d respond and found only the calm emptiness of her sleep at the end of it. And the peace and quiet of her deep, deep sleep calmed something in me, reminded me that I too should get some rest. 

My city glittered beneath me , safe and happy and so full of life, as I flew back to the townhouse. It had been my one source of relief since my return from Under the Mountain, my singular joy during those months while I tried in vain to let Feyre go. I’d fly till the point of exhaustion as often as I could, but even that couldn’t drive away the nightmares for long. But as least I afforded me a couple of hours of sleep. 

As I landed on the roof of the townhouse, exhaustion hit me  When was the last time I’d slept? Two nights ago? Three? I could go for four before my attitude got bad enough for one of my friends to call me out on it. I made my way back to the townhouse. It wouldn’t be a good idea meet the Bone Carver without some rest beforehand. 

But I would sleep better now that I knew that Feyre was safe. It had been a source of agony for the last six months, seeing her waste away before my eyes and unable to do anything to stop it. I prayed to the Mother that she would be able to begin healing now that she was here. After all, she hadn’t outright turned down Cassian’s offer to train her as she’d done to me.  And she’d had a spark in her eyes more than once tonight, glimmers of the woman i loved shining through the cracks in the case of stone she’d put around herself. In time, things could get better. 

Feyre’s scent hit me as soon as I walked through the door, spicy and floral at the same time. My blood roared to life in my veins, as if just the few hours I had spent away from her had been a lifetime. Immediately, I knew that I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. Her scent alone was eough to set me aflame. Living under the same, small roof with her was going to be more difficult than I had anticipated. 

I didn’t care though. I didn’t care that my heart raced and my blood pulsed whenever she was near. I didn’t care that when I’d held her in my arms as I’d flown her to the House of Wind earlier was possibly the most glorious moment of my existence.  I didn’t care that, according to what Amren had said this morning, I could make all my troubles go away by simply claiming Feyre as my mate. I didn’t care. 

She was so broken and had been through so much and I could feel the steady tattoo of  _ Traitor. Traitor. Traitor. _ beating through her mind, her heart, every moment she’d spent in Velaris. The last thing I wanted was for her to feel any sort of obligation to me, to us. Especially while she was still in love with Tamlin. For now, her being here was a big enough step for me. Knowing that she was safe, that she could have a chance to heal...If that’s all that ever came of this, it would be enough for me. 

I shucked off my fine clothes, worn because Nuala had slipped in before dinner to tell me what Feyre was wearing, and slipped into soft, comfortable pants. I summoned the pile of paperwork I’d been ignoring for the last week from my desk in the study and settled down in my favorite armchair to finally get some work done.

* * *

Amarantha’s face flashed across my mind’s eye and I was suddenly laying naked on that hideous red marble floor, a knife dragging across my skin.  _ Lying, traitorous human with your filthy lying heart, _ her voice hissed inside my head. It took me only a moment to realize that it was one of Feyre’s dreams and not reality. I jerked my mind back into my body quickly,  the report I’d fallen asleep reading flying from my hands and scattering across the floor as I winnowed myself directly into Feyre’s bedroom. 

It was full of smoke and darkness so thick I could barely see my hand in front of my face. It took more effort than I’d anticipated, but I willed the darkness to vanish and, after a moment, it did. Her bed was burning,  _ she  _ was burning, her fingers ending in living flames as they tore at her sheets, catching fire to the material and the mattress beneath. Through the bond, I could still feel her dream, the terror and loneliness and I pulled on the bond with every ounce of will I possessed as I ran to her bed.

_ Feyre!  _ I shouted down that beacon of light between us, swearing when I hit the thick walls of adamant that surrounded her mind. _ Feyre, wake up! Wake up! Wake up!  _ She was thrashing and I was afraid she’d burn herself on her own flames.   _ Wake up! Feyre please.  _ I was still banging against that mental shield as I grabbed her shoulders and sent out waves of darkness to squelch the flames before they could touch her, wrapped the darkness gently around her hands so that she couldn’t burn anything else. 

_ I’m going to make eternity a hell for you _ .

The words hissed through my mind and I nearly dropped my hold on Feyre’s shoulders. They were words Amarantha had said to me many times Under the Mountain. She’d been so sure that she would win, so smug, so certain… Feyre was screaming in my arms now, and I felt the sharp burst of pain from her dream as she pushed against my hands, thrashing and kicking and screaming, screaming, screaming. 

I would not let Amarantha win. I would not let that bitch have my mate. I channeled all my power, every bit of the ancient gifts I’d been blessed with into my voice as I tightened my hands on her arms and spoke her name. 

“FEYRE.” She went still beneath me, her screams dying on her lips and her flaming fingers dwindling to embers. “Open your eyes.” 

She did, her grey eyes glittering in the moonlight that was once again seeping through her window. There was residual terror lurking about the edges, but she was awake, instantly calmed by the command of a High Lord. 

“It was a dream,” I breathed, my voice sounding less like the primal High Lord and more like myself. I looked for any signs that she'd burnt herself, but what I could see of her pale, smooth skin was unmarred. Her nightclothes clung damply to her shaking shoulders and strands of hair were plastered to her sweat soaked face, but she was back in reality with me. “A dream.” 

She took in her surroundings, first the bedroom, the glittering city beyond her open windows, and then finally her tattered  bed. Carefully, as if she were in a trance, she shifted in my grip and lifted a hand, the ends of her fingers still glowing red orange. She stared at it with wide, horrified eyes for a long moment before pushing out of my grip entirely and frantically pitching towards the bathing room.

I followed her into the large bathing room and sank to my knees behind her as she emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet. I had seen her doing this so many times through the bond and it had killed me that I couldn't be there to comfort her, that no one had come to check on her, not even once, even though she got sick every single night. Maybe she wanted it that way, maybe she couldn't stand having someone else be witness to her violent sickness. 

But even if she hadn't wanted it, I had still been witness to her every moment of illness since she'd freed us from Under the Mountain. And I had woken up from nightmares that left me sick to my stomach often enough to want someone to comfort me.

“Breathe,” I said as I pulled her damp hair out of her face and wrapped the silky strands around one wrist. “Imagine them winking out like candles,” I said, repeating advice I’d been given when my powers first became manifest and had been uncontrollable and all over the place. “One by one.” 

Instead of taking my advice, she threw up again, fire and ash joining the bile in the toilet bowl and the embers disappeared, fading back into the ends of her fingers. 

“Well, that's one way to do it.” 

She stilled and slowly lifted her head to look at her fingers, nearly as pale as the porcelain they rested on. I felt the tumultuous roll of power and fear inside her begin to ebb away. She felt drained, emotionally and physically, but her stomach wasn't done with her yet because she started heaving again. 

“I have this dream,” I said softly as I carded her hair away from her face and wrapped it more firmly behind her head. “Where it's not me stuck under her, but Cassian or Azriel. And she's pinned their wings to the bed with spikes, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.” I closed my eyes against the memory and tried not to cringe. I opened my eyes and stared at the back of Feyre’s head, at the gold brown strands of hair wrapped around my hand and force myself to finish “She's commanded me to watch, and I have no choice but to see how I failed them.”

In front of me, Feyre spat into the toilet and flushed, but didn't move beyond that. I kept staring at the back of her head until she turned to look over her shoulder at me. 

“You never failed them,” she said, her voice raw. 

My heart clenched at the words. Maybe I hadn't failed them outright. They had remained safe and unscathed in my city, but still…”I did...horrible things to ensure that.” 

Horrible didn't begin to cover everything I’d done. Horrible was too weak a word for the torture and beatings and blood I’d shed in Amarantha’s name. Horrible would never come close to what I'd done. 

“So did I,” Feyre said, her voice soft. Face flashed across the bond. Faces I recognized from her constant nightmares about them. She nearly pulled her hair out of my hand with how quickly she turned back to the toilet to throw up even more of her dinner. 

I didn't realize I'd done it until my hand was making it’s way down her back. It was all I'd wanted to be able to do for weeks, to reach out and give her so sort of small comfort while she battled those demons. What I was doing now was something my mother had done for my sister and I when we were small and sick, holding back our hair and rubbing our backs until we were done. The material of her nightshirt was thick and soft, but even so, beneath it I could feel the knobs of her spine, could see the shape of her ribs. Rage bubbled just beneath the surface. So thin she was so thin and they hadn’t done anything,  _ I _ hadn’t done anything. I pushed down the guilt and anger and focused my attention back on her. Feyre had relaxed under my touch, even as she continued throwing up. Once she stopped heaving, she leaned back and without looking at me, whispered, “The flames?” 

“Autumn Court,” I said simply, recalling the few times I'd seen Beron actually defend himself instead of deferring to one of his sons or courtiers. 

She didn't reply and I didn't bother to explain any further. We sat there on the floor in silence for a long time, one of my hands still tangled in her hair, the other stroking her back, until she laid her head against the edge of the bathtub and fell asleep. 

I didn't try to wake her. Instead, I carefully pulled her into my arms, moving achingly slowly so as not to wake her and made my way back to her bed. I summoned new sheets and blankets for her bed and was about to lay her down, but she nuzzled her face against my chest and mumbled incoherently into my skin. I froze. It wasn't the first time she'd touched me voluntarily, but it was the kind of intimacy that until last night, I hadn't even been able to let myself dream about. 

I don't know how long I stood there with her in my arms. The moonlight shifted across the floor and moved up the wall and still I stood there, not daring to move a muscle while she had her face nuzzled into my neck. Eventually, she moved again and brought me back to myself. She’d be furious if she woke to find me standing next to her bed with her in my arms. I laid her down as carefully and pulled the blankets up around her chin, tucking them tightly around her body to guard against the night air, before  I brushed a kiss across her forehead and left to try to get some sleep before she woke.


	2. His Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys' POV from Chapter 38 of ACOMAF.

The screaming was so loud that my ears rang, but when I went to cover them, my fingers met with a wet warmth. I pulled my hands away to see what was on them and realized that I was covered in blood. My hair dripped it into my eyes and it ran down my arms and soaked my shirt and pants. I was kneeling in a pool of it and it was raining over me. So much blood and not a drop of it my own.

Claire Beddor’s blood. The blood of half of the Court of Nightmares. The blood of ifrits and the High Lord of the Summer Court. My mother’s blood. My sister’s blood. Cassian’s blood. Azriel’s blood. Mor’s blood. Amren’s blood. I was swimming in the blood of all the people I’d hurt, all the people I’d let down, all the people I’d killed and there was no escaping it. Their screams wrapped themselves around me, until I was screaming too.

And just when I thought I couldn’t stand it any long, like I would go crazy from the blood and the screaming and the guilt that was consuming me from the inside out, it was gone. I was clean and kneeling on floor of Amarantha’s court Under the Mountain and there were children surrounding me. They were silent. Some were barely old enough to stand on their own. Some holding hands, clinging to each other in terror. Some with tears slipping down their faces. All of them staring at me with terrified eyes and gaping mouths, all completely silent.

They didn’t belong Under the Mountain. They weren’t supposed to be here. From a distance, I heard someone screaming my name, but it was so quiet that I didn’t pay attention to it. Couldn’t pay attention to it, not when all these children were standing here, staring at me, waiting for me to do something, anything to help them. But I couldn’t. I was frozen to the spot, unable to do so much as lift my pinkie.

Whoever was screaming my name had gotten closer. I could hear the panic and fear in that voice, and yet, I couldn’t look away from the crowd of children.  
A ripple in the crowd as they slowly stepped away from me, parting so that I had a clear view of the other side of the room. The child in front of me, a little girl no older than five or six, was the last to step aside. When she did, she raised a chubby fist and pointed.

Across the room was Amarantha, her hands raised as she manipulated the magic she’d stolen from us. And before her, writhing on the ground, was Feyre. It had been Feyre screaming my name over and over, her cries punctuated with sickening cracks as her bones snapped one by one.

The children were gone, thank the Mother, and there was a knife in my hand. I lunged across the room, slipping on Feyre's blood as I ran for Amarantha, dagger poised to kill. I ignored the stab of pain that shot through my head as I ran. All I could hear was Feyre screaming my name as she died. Any second now Amarantha would break Feyre’s neck and I couldn’t let it happen. Not again. I leapt over Feyre’s prone body and slammed Amarantha into the wall behind her. The knife in my hand transformed into claws as I readied myself to rip her throat out.

And then Amarantha’s face morphed into Feyre’s, her face pale against the wall.

“Rhysand,” she said in a voice so soft that I almost didn’t hear it over the thudding of my heart. A trick. It was just a trick. Amarantha had seen me kissing Feyre in the hall. She suspected that Feyre meant more to me than she’d realized. She was using that knowledge against me to keep me from killing her. It wouldn’t work. I tightened my grip and raised my clawed fingers again.

And then I felt her. Not Amarantha, but Feyre. A calming hand brushing against my mental shield and her voice echoing through my head, Rhys. Music, soft and gentle, filled my head and wrapped itself around my heart.

“It was a dream.” Her voice wasn’t singing along the bond this time, but filling me ears. I focused on it, letting it draw me up and up through the layers of sleep until I could hear her more clearly. “It was a dream.”

It was dark when I opened my eyes. The darkness of pain and anger and horrible, hidden things. There was a gentle caress in the darkness, stars and galaxies pressing themselves up against the sick blackness that poured out of my soul. And slowly, tentatively, the tenor of the darkness changed. Soothing, soft darkness rubbed up against the pain-filled and guilt stricken ichor that leaked from me and transformed it into something as sweet and loving as a lullaby.

I took a deep breath and the darkness flickered long enough for me to see Feyre’s face beneath me, her skin pale even paler than my white silk sheets. My dream flashed through my mind, Amarantha trying to trick me. Just another way to play with my mind and torment me.

“Feyre,” I heard her say, but the word sounded like she was speaking underwater. I was confused and frightened and angry that I couldn’t tell the difference between Amarantha and my mate.

“I’m Feyre,” she said, her voice clearer now and as calm and melodic as the lullaby in the darkness. I felt her warm fingers wrap around my wrist. “You were dreaming.”

The sweet darkness of lovers caressed me from the inside out, running gentle fingers along my mental shields. I was awake. Amarantha was dead. It was just a dream.  
The darkness vanished and moonlight washed over my room. My room in the townhouse. In Velaris. I was in Velaris and Amarantha was dead and-

“Feyre,” I managed to choke out. My throat ached and I could still taste the blood from my dream.

“Yes.” The word drew my attention outward again, to the woman I’d pinned to my bed with a hand at her throat. Not Amarantha. Amarantha was dead. Feyre was alive and well and she was in my bed with my hand wrapped around her throat.

I withdrew my hand and shrank away from her, horror washing over me as I began to piece together what had happened. The dream had been so bad that my darkness had gotten out of control. It must have woke her and she’d come to check on me, as I had done for her all those nights ago when she’d almost set her bed on fire. I rubbed my eyes and dragged my hands over my face. My taloned hands. Mother above, how close had I been to shifting?

She was moving beneath me, pulling herself up so that she was sitting on the bed instead of laying beneath me. “You were having a nightmare.”

I dropped my hands and the talons disappeared. Across from me, her hair was loose and mussed, her pale nightclothes and skin shining in the moonlight. Except for the red marks on her throat from where I’d grabbed her. Horror washed over me. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s why you’re staying here, not at the House,” she said. “You don’t want the others seeing this.”

“I normally keep it contained to my room,” I said, still staring at my hands. “I’m sorry it woke you.” 

“How often does it happen?” she asked and I raised my head to look at her. Her grey eyes shone with compassion in the moonlight. She understood me. She had been there and she had nightmares too. Had them still, even if they hadn’t woken her and sent her running for the toilet since that first night. “As often as you.” 

“What did you dream of tonight?”

The children and their silent, terrified faces flashed across my mind’s eye. I shook my head, not ready to speak acknowledge the dream and the incident it stemmed from. I looked out the window, at my city, safe and twinkling outside my window. I had done so much to save this city and the people here. But that didn’t mean I wanted to talk about it.  
“There are memories from Under the Mountain, Feyre, that are best left unshared. Even with you.” 

She was silent for a long moment and then her warm hand was on my elbow. Her touch soothed the violent thing twisting around in my gut and I was able to breathe more easily.

“When you want to talk, let me know,” she said. “ I won’t tell the others.”

When, not if. She knew that eventually I’d have to share all the horror and the guilt and the pain, lest it devour me from the inside out. But she wouldn’t force me until I was ready. I loved her for it.

The mattress dipped as she shifted, making to head back to her own room. I grabbed her hand, pressing it against my arm, not ready to let her go yet. “Thank you.”

She didn’t move for another long moment and her breath was the only thing I could hear as she studied me. I was too drained in the aftermath of the dream to try to put on a mask to hide my feelings from her. And I found that I didn’t care if she saw the real me, the broken and tormented man behind the mask of the most powerful High Lord ever. With Feyre, I was safe.

And then she leaned forward and brushed her lips over my cheek, her warm breath ghosting across my skin, her sweet and spicy scent filling my nose. Every thought and every emotion froze when her lips touched my skin. She pulled away just as quickly and I couldn’t fathom how to form words as she slipped off the bed and padded towards the door.

She paused at the threshold. I thought I felt a flicker of something pure and shining sing down the bond, but she'd disappeared into the hallway before I'd managed to lift my head. My thoughts were so tangled that I didn’t move for a long time after she’d left. I didn’t fall back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ACOMAF fandom on Tumblr has this theory that Rhys was involved in the deaths of the 200 Winter Court children from ACOTAR. And while I desperately hope that it isn't the case, it made good nightmare fodder.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few more POV scenes that won't let go of me, and this one was the shortest of them, so I wrote it on my phone during a visit to my parents. Please forgive any typos that occurred as a result.


End file.
